Galatians 1 and the Letter With No Thank-You in It

Paul's letters mostly open the same way, with a greeting, then a paragraph where he tells the people he's writing to how glad he is about them, how he prays for them, how their faith is known everywhere. I'd gotten used to that rhythm without noticing, which is why Galatians stopped me. I got through the greeting, kept my eyes open for the thank-you, and ran straight into verse 6.

My dad wrote to me every week on my mission, real paper, a blue airmail envelope that took ten days to reach Diadema. Every letter started with the weather in Bountiful, even when nothing had happened. It was a kind of throat-clearing, and I loved it. Then one letter in the spring of 1999 started with "David, I need to tell you something before you hear it from somebody else," and no weather at all. I stood on the sidewalk outside the pension where we ate lunch and read the rest of it. It was about the house, and I knew before the second line that something was wrong, because of what he'd left off the top.

What does it mean that there is "another gospel" which is "not another"?

Here are the verses that replace the thanks.

I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

(Galatians 1:6-9)

For years I winced at the curse, which comes twice in four verses with Paul admitting he's repeating himself, and I pictured a man who'd lost his temper at his desk. Dad's weatherless letter should have taught me better. He wasn't angry when he skipped the pleasantries. He skipped them because he thought I'd want the news plain and fast, and I think Paul is doing the same thing, only with a lot more at stake.

Look at "which is not another," because Paul is being careful with words here. The thing the Galatians were offered carries the same label and is a different product, so it can't be called a second gospel. The churches, as best anyone can tell, were being told that Gentile converts needed to take on the practices of the law of Moses, circumcision first, to be fully counted among the covenant people. Put that way it doesn't sound like heresy at all, just a few reasonable additions from people who clearly cared.

At work, a payments reviewer once flagged a half-cent drift in a currency conversion on a Thursday afternoon, and no one in the room proposed hearing other perspectives on it. The fix went out that night. Paul has the same reflex about the gospel.

Why does Paul say he never got the gospel from the apostles?

Here the chapter turns from warning to his own story. He's been accused of something, or expects to be, most likely that his gospel is secondhand or worse, edited, so he lays out where it came from.

For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

(Galatians 1:12)

Then he gives his résumé, and it makes him look bad. He persecuted the church "beyond measure" and "wasted it" and outran his peers in zeal for the traditions of his fathers. A man defending his authority usually leaves out the worst thing he ever did, and Paul leads with it. That counts for something with me, since an invented apostle would have come with a cleaner past.

Then comes the turn in verses 15 and 16, "when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me." The word that catches me is "in," where I'd have expected "to." Whatever happened on the road to Damascus, he describes something that landed inside him and stayed, and then he says what he did next, which was that he "conferred not with flesh and blood."

Paul never says he avoided the other apostles forever. Galatians 2 is where he lays the whole thing next to Peter and James, and chapter 1 only covers where it started.

What was Paul doing in Arabia for three years?

I don't know, and neither does anyone else.

Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother.

(Galatians 1:17-19)

Arabia gets one clause, and read quickly you'd think he popped over for the weekend. He puts it ahead of Jerusalem in the order of events though, which means it counts. The three years that follow could run from the conversion or from the return to Damascus, and I read it both ways in a single sitting depending on how the sentence landed.

My mind wants to fill the gap, because a man goes into the desert and comes out an apostle, and it supplies a very good montage. The text gives me none of it. Most readers say prayer and preparation, which is a reasonable inference and still an inference. I'd rather leave the gap the size Paul left it.

What the verses do give is the sequence, revelation first, then a long quiet, then fifteen days with Peter. That's long enough to compare notes and short enough that no one could claim he'd been trained there. Paul even stops mid-account to swear to it, "Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not." A man doesn't take an oath over a detail he thinks is small.

I read this chapter Wednesday evening after the kids were down, and again this morning at the counter before anyone was up. In 2 Corinthians 11 he answers a similar charge by listing what the work cost him, and the voice there is almost weary. Galatians is sharper. Research puts this letter somewhere after his early missionary travels, so I won't guess at why he sounds so much younger here.

What do the last two verses of Galatians 1 add?

I almost skipped them. Paul says he went on to Syria and Cilicia and stayed unknown to the churches of Judea, who only heard that the man who used to persecute them was now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.

But they had heard only, That he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed. And they glorified God in me.

(Galatians 1:23-24)

The last six words are the ones I keep going back to. Those churches had never met Paul and had no reason to glorify him, so they glorified God for what they'd heard had happened to him. After a whole chapter of Paul defending his standing, the people who end it don't need him to defend anything.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Paul get his gospel directly from Jesus Christ?

That's the claim in verses 11 and 12, that he got it "by the revelation of Jesus Christ" and from no person or classroom. He doesn't say his teaching differs from the apostles', and in chapter 2 he lays it beside theirs and finds they agree.

Why does Paul curse anyone who preaches another gospel?

The Galatians were being offered an added set of requirements, as if Christ's work wasn't enough on its own, and Paul thinks that changes what the gospel is. The repetition in verse 9, "As we said before, so say I now again," is deliberate, and he knows it.

Where was Arabia, and what happened there?

Most likely the desert country southeast of Damascus, and Paul doesn't say what he did there. Readers fill the gap with prayer and preparation, which is plausible, though it's inference and I'd call it that.

Did Paul meet the other apostles after his conversion?

Chapter 1 records one visit to Jerusalem, three years in, when he stayed fifteen days with Peter. He says he saw no other apostle there except James, the Lord's brother. The longer meeting with Peter and James comes in Galatians 2.

Back to the churches of Judea

Verse 24 is the one I'd skimmed for years, and it's the one that shows what the gospel looks like when it works. Strangers heard a report and gave the credit to God.

I'll get to Galatians 2 soon.

— D.